No Vacancy

For the past three years, I’ve been a city girl and loving it. I live in The District, and I love being able to walk to the grocery store to pick up some eggs, stroll downtown to see a movie or run around the Monuments.

That being said, I get really excited about suburban luxuries – like drive through coffee at Dunkin’, wandering around a massive Target or having a driveway. So, naturally, I was very excited to see that we had a bird’s nest on our front door. I thought, “How quaint! I hope it is a Robin or a Blue Jay, and we will have cute little baby birds around. It will be like having a backyard!”

No, it is not like that at all.

It is a Pigeon’s nest.

Instead of a cute Robin, we have a Pigeon that stands guard over its nest directly inside my door frame. It turns its head sideways, and watches your every move with its huge pupils. See?

I am not pleased with my new watchful neighbor – it gives me the heebie-jeebies. I don’t like to be stared at while taking out the recycle, Bird, afraid you’re going to fly inside. You are big and brown and there are two of you! (Mom stands guard by night, Dad by day. This is Dad.)

The roommates and I immediately turned to the Internet for advice. Current plan: Put up rubber snakes to scare off the parents from re-nesting there. (Which were rush ordered from Amazon, thankyouverymuch Roommate.)

Funny how I was totally okay with it being a Blue Jay, but you tell me it’s a Pigeon and I flip out. Pigeons are fine when they waddle around urban parks, or near office buildings, but they are not supposed to be in my home. It’s sad really – the Pigeon were revered and domesticated, a symbol of peace. They carried the results of the first Olympics, Darwin relied of them to formulate his theory of evolution*. Now they are referred to as “rats with wings.” And I don't necessarily disagree. Just don’t tell that to Mike Tyson.

I’m not onboard with this urban guest. Guess I’m not that much of a city girl.

*While in Europe, Andrew brought up a good point – Pigeons are in every major city the world over. How did they adapt to every climate? Where are they indigenous to? These, and further Pigeon questions, spurned me to buy a book on Pigeons when I saw it on sale for $2. And it has sat, unread, for 5 years. Until last night when I, in my Pigeon frenzy, decided I needed to figure out how to get rid of the doorway birds. It is the source of the above "fun" facts. If you consider facts about Pigeons to be fun.

19 comments:

Poor bird! I can understand how you feel about the pigeon. We have crows all over the place and it creeps me out! Can you tell were not in the city! :) Used to live in the city (Philadelphia) and hated Pigeons! Good Luck. Thanks for following my blog.

I'm on board with the "rats with wings" comment...I know they have to go somewhere, but I just hope it is *far* from me! I mean, there are reasons that people have those little buggers exterminated...that sounded bad, but I'm just tryin' to keep it real! (c: Good luck with your new "pet"!

eeeeww so gross. I think the rats in dc are worse than the pigeons. I used to live on Washington Circle and sometimes at night during the summer I would sit out on my 'stoop' to talk on the phone. Every once in a while a giant rat would scurry across the bottom of the steps..... it is creeping me out just thinking about it. Sorry about your pigeon.